SimpleMachines - FINALLY a Community Software to Get Excited
About!
Its been a long time since I have gotten excited about a new CMS
or forum software to hit the scene. Granted, Mamb
o was enough to perk my ears up, but the jury is still out
on that one.
Last week I downloaded SimpleMachines and installed it for a test drive. Four
hours later I had replaced 2 PhpB
B Forums and 2 InvisionBoard ones with Simple Machines. Within 24 hours
I had also set up 2 NEW SimpleMachines sites for a couple of my
clients to test drive. Within 48 hours, one of my clients was
already sold and we have begun building his entire website
around SimpleMachines. It should be obvious to you by now that
SimpleMachines is NOT "just another forum software".
I won't go into the whole history of SimpleMachines, (though if
you are interested, you can read about it in this message thread, but SimpleMachines is brought to you
by almost the same team of developers who produced YaBBSE.
SimpleMacines is a LOT faster, more robust and has a ton more
features than YaBBSE. It is truly a piece of software that
could, (and is), being used to form the backbone of a
full-featured online community.
There are many reasons I found SimpleMachines so exicting that I
immediately rushed into implementing it and becoming a Charter
Member to support the development team. (SMF is free and the
developers assure us it always will be, but Charter Members help
defray the costs of the developers AND provide a whole list of
benefits) Part of the reason was the ease of conversion. I was
able to convert both PhpBB and Invision Power Board forums to
SimpleMachines in just a few minutes automatically. Part of the
reason was this incredible Package Manager that is built in to
SMF that allows you to browse, download AND install Mods at the
touch of a button! That's right - even though this software is
relatively new, (slightly over a year old & only in release 1.0
RC2), so there are not yet many modules built for it, I was able
to install a shoutbox, a buddy list and several other modules
instantly!
SimpleMachines also has a great bridge that allows you to easily
integrate it into Mambo, (another of my new favorite
applications!), and LunaByte is expected to release a full front
end portal for SMF within the next few weeks. But honestly, you
might not even NEED Mambo or LunaByte to create your own protal.
SMF provides very easy to use SSI functionality so you can
create your OWN customized front end portal for it. In addition
it already has a built in calendar, (a feature about 3/4 of our
website design customers ask for).
The incredible list of features being built in to SimpleMachines
is too lengthy to list here. If you are interested you can see
the feature list on AlphaOne Technology Web Hosting & Design or on the SimpleMachines
Website. Even if you are not currently in the market for a
community forum and MORE software, keep an eye on SMF - its
developers are definitely forward thinking and have worked hard
to develop streamlined code that doesn't tax your system
resources the way many similar, (but lesser!), applications do.
AlphaOne Technology
will install and configure SimpleMachines FREE of charge with
the purchase of any web hosting plan.